Bullets: Sinners Reviews, Trade Solicitation, and More.

A few noteworthy items since the conclusion of Criminal: The Sinners earlier this month:

• Reviews for The Sinners. Alongside our discussion here [SPOILERS], I've read two quite positive reviews of the conclusion to Criminal: The Sinners.
  
  In Newsarama's "Best Shots" reviews, Brendan McGuirk praises the story arc as the series' most ambitious to-date. At IGN, Dan Phillips gave the final issue a 9/10, praising Sean Phillips for his atmospheric art and Ed Brubaker for his grasp of noir and for the inevitability of the story's tragic conclusion. Like me, Dan Phillips is anguished over the title's upcoming hiatus.
  
  
• Details on Sinners Trade Paperback. Marvel's June solicitations were released this week, and while the return of Incognito was nowhere to be seen, the trade collection for "The Sinners" was finally announced.
  
  The single-volume collection of Criminal: The Sinners will include an introduction by crime novelist Ian Rankin, and it is scheduled for a June 16th release date, with an MSRP of $15.99.
  
  
• Personalized Books from Sean Phillips. As our own ADD mentioned this morning, Sean Phillips has reposted the cover art for "The Sinners" trade paperback.
  
  Visiting Sean's blog is strongly encouraged: he's recently opened his own Amazon (UK) shop, and lately he's been posting custom sketches that he's drawn in the front of individual books purchased through this site, including the Incognito paperback and the Criminal hardcover. If only this shop were opened earlier...
  
  
• The Best of 2009 Meta-List. Finally, thanks to Marc Sobel at our sister blog, Trouble with Comics, I came across a "meta-list" for the best comics of 2009, collating the selections from 130 individual lists into a ranking of 100 titles. Criminal and Incognito both made the list, the former having done so every year since its 2006 debut. One bit of the compiler's commentary is worth repeating:
  
  "Where's Marvel? Two of Marvel's top three comic books are creator-owned: Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's Incognito (#39) and Brubaker and Phillips's Criminal (#48). Not until Daredevil (#43) do you see a Marvel-owned property, and that too was written by Brubaker for the majority of the year. Note to Marvel: don't fire Ed Brubaker."
  
  An update accounting for an additional 15 lists rendered the analysis somewhat obsolete, but it's still the case that Ed Brubaker has been involved in quite a few of Marvel's most acclaimed works in the past year or so.

I imagine that news will be light at least until new issues of Incognito are announced, probably no sooner than mid-April, but we'll be here through this upcoming quiet spell and the return of the pulp-superhero hybrid, all the way to the return of Criminal -- and beyond.


Buy Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics from Amazon.com

The Sinners Finale in Stores Tomorrow.

Along with the retailer sites I check from week to week, Ed Brubaker confirms that Criminal: The Sinners #5 is in comic shops this week -- tomorrow for most retailers.

I haven't been able to find any online previews of the story's finale, but I'll update this entry if that changes.